Everything happened in slow motion, and I fully blamed the liquor. Possibly aloud. All I knew was that one minute I was spinning and the next I heard a smash and crackling sound as I met the ground. Briggs was over me in seconds, lifting my head, then my arms, and when his hand slid in the space between my back and the ground I jolted up, sending my forehead smack into his chest. Which was hard. And warm. And making my hands stay on the ground became too hard—
“Rose.” He groaned, the sound so unlike the one that came from him before when I was taunting him in his car. My drunken thighs quaked, my eyes falling slowly to where my hands were pressed flat on his chest.
I blinked a few times at my fingers. “Rose, are you hurt? Damnit.” I finally fully registered the sounds of crackling glass and looked beside me at the bottle, shards scattered like the snow around me. I’d fallen on flat dirt, or most of me had. My hand with the bottle in it had managed to find the one raised root of a tree, and just like that, the whiskey was gone. Along with most of my inhibitions because I didn’t pull my hands from Briggs’ chest.
He brushed away some of my hair that had fallen over my nose and our eyes locked briefly before I ripped mine away. “I’m okay, Briggs.” If it weren’t for the parting in the trees, there would be no way to see him. It was too dark and we were too far from the light of the bonfire. Yet, the moonlight that broke through the trees found him, just like my hands had.
“I’m okay,” I repeated, waiting for his hand to drop.
His arm around my waist shifted, drawing me closer to him. “You’re so different than I expected.”
I flexed my fingers out, my attention falling back to him. “W-what?”
“Nothing.” His careful thumb rubbed along my cheek and I heard him curse under his breath. “You’re bleeding.”
A glimmer of blood along his palm flashed through my haze as he pulled away. “Me? What about you?” Sure, I was inebriated and it was dark, but the amount of blood in his palm illuminated by the silvery halo of light above him was clear as day—red mixed with a thin patch of white as it dripped to the ground, spreading like ink on paper.
“It’s just a scratch.” He looked me over completely once more, and when he was certain I was fine besides whatever mark I had on my cheek, he took my hands with one of his and helped me up.
I looked down at the blood dripping onto the snow, drawing his gaze there with mine. “That’s more than a scratch.”
“It’s nothing.” He put his shoe over the red-stained ground. “I’m more concerned about you.”
“I told you, I’m fine.”
His fist tightened at his side. “Let me carry you back to my car.”
I stared back at him incredulously as I found my shoes and slipped them back on. “You’re more hurt than I am, are you serious?”
“So you admit it—you’re hurt.” He smirked, then jerked his head. “You either let me carry you, or you scream at me while I’m carrying you, anyway.”
I gawked at him, my tipsy mind unsure if I heard him correctly. “You wouldn’t.”
His smirk twisted. “Oh, I would.”
I stood and crossed my arms over my chest. “I guess you’re going to have to—” I gasped as he scooped me up, bridal style. “Briggs!”
“I told you I would. And you lied. You’re clearly hurt.”
“I’m not the one dripping blood all over the place.” I pushed against his chest to get away. Briggs didn’t budge.
“It’s hardly anything,” he growled low, the sound vibrating along my side.
I rolled my eyes and surrendered. “Do you at least have bandages in your car?” I asked, fixating again on the blood coming from his hand as he walked, holding me like I weighed nothing. It was a long shot, but for some reason, I knew the answer was yes. He was the kind of person who would totally keep a First Aid Kit in his car.
“Yeah. I do.”
Knew it. In mostly silence, we made our way back to his car, where he set me down and then pulled out a kit from his trunk that had enough in it to suture someone up from several open wounds. I glanced past the trunk door at the bonfire in the distance, realizing no one had seen him carry me back here. Still, my body felt like I was on fire, and it wasn’t from embarrassment.
I adjusted my clothes. “You just take the E.R. with you, huh?”
“I box a lot.” Briggs started digging through his kit, squeezing his palm between searching for what he needed. He was too stubborn to ask for help, so I didn’t bother waiting for him to ask. I jutted my hipinto his thigh, hoping it would edge him over, but he was every bit the immovable force that he appeared to be.
“Let me help you,” I ordered. He examined me, then stepped to the side, keeping his palm covered with his other hand. Blood was still dripping from it, but he seemed rather unaffected. If anything, it seemed more like a nuisance to him.
“Can you wrap it?” He glanced at the bag, then at me.
“Pshh, can I wrap it.Men.“ I dug out a bandage, sterilized gauze, and the butterfly band-aids. When I pulled out the smaller bag to possibly suture his hand, he cleared his throat behind me.